The sensory nerve regulates the development, maintenance and regeneration of taste buds. In order to determine whether this effect was specific to nerves which normally innervate oral tissue, a cross-regeneration study was performed in which sensory axons distributing via the vagus nerve to the chest and abdomen were forced to reinnervate denervated tonque tissue. Taste buds reappeared after reinnervation by the normally non-gustatory vagal axons indicating that the effect of nerve in inducing buds is not confined to oral sensory axons. In another study motor axons of the hypoglossal nerve were grown into denervated tongue tissue but, instead of penetrating into the epithelium and inducing buds, these axons merely meandered in the connective tissue beneath the lingual epithelium. This result might mean that tissue structures or components like basement membrane could regulate which type of axons (sensory or motor) enters its epithelium.